How to start training after a period of physical inactivity

As promised in my last post, I will try to give some general information about how to plan when changing your lifestyle into a more active or, or if you're planning to increase your level of physical activity significantly.

But keep in mind, that when talking to a Personal Trainer (PT) about your training plan, the PT really has to ask about your history when it comes to injuries, otherwise the exercises aren't adapt to your body, and you might even be training it into more problems. A serious PT always knows or makes sure to know what weaknesses or weak spots the client has.

I will divide my guidelines into two parts:
1. For people who haven't been physically active except for maybe walking a bit each day.
2. For people who's been a little active; for example walking, taking the bike to work every now and then, joining a game once a month, or doing some bodyweight training twice a month.

Nr 1...
... Haven't trained the last couple of years, and maybe wasn't that much of an athlete before that either. How does this person start over with physical activity?
The best way is to make sure you have 8-12 weeks of a transition phase. During this phase you train twice a week with the aim of getting your body used to loading, and really just strengthening the tissue. This means that even though you feel that the training is easy after 3 weeks, do not increase the weight of intensity, as the increase of strength you feel is merely the nervous system getting better at corresponding with the muscles and coordinating them. What you could do instead is to add another set. So for example if you start with 2x12/exercise (2 sets of 12 repetitions in each set per exercise), you do 3x12/exercise instead.

What exercises should you do? Well, If you are totally new to this, most people start working out in machines, because they are safe. But if you have a good PT, it would be better for your body to work with functional movements instead.
When you're only training two times a week, you can do whole body exercises, or just use machines for the different parts of the body both times, but maybe change the exercise even though it's still the same body part (if you train more than twice a week, it's better to split the program so the different muscles get enough recovery time).
After 8-12 weeks, that is when you start to increase the load and go for 3x10/exercise. You can also add another day of training per week, progressively up to 4 times/week during a period of 8 weeks.

Nr 2...
... Has done a little bit of training every now and then, probably because of the bad conscience telling this person to do at least something... ;) Which means that once a month or so, this person does something other than walking or biking; for example goes out for a run, or does some bodyweight exercises.
The main difference compared to the example above is that this person can add some aerobic training in the beginning. Although the strength part is still only twice a week with the same plan as above, but add some easy aerobic training as well, for example using the rower, bike, crosstrainer, treadmill and so on, and maybe even switching between these conditioning machines every 5-10 min once a week.

About what weights to start with; make sure that you at the end of the set feel tired in the muscles, but are still able to do at least 5 more repetitions. That's a good weight to start with.

It's very difficult to give specific advice (obviously) when the information isn't to a specific client. Which means the information above is very general, but hopefully it'll give you some idea about how soft the start really needs to be.

However, if you want to start running, then that's a completely different matter, and needs a completely different approach. I will leave that topic for another post in the future.

Stay well!
Sunny regards from Doha!
Shirin
With special guest appearance from Sophia Bassemir (physiotherapist), Stuttgart, Germany

Training with a Personal Trainer? What do you know about his/her knowledge?

As a physical therapist, I am very pleased that most people in the west (and foremost in Sweden) are taking their training seriously, changing their lifestyle, and spend more time on physical activity to improve their health status. However, we should not forget that there are still very many people who with low physical activity level, but that is not the topic for this post. It was training, and in particular exercise with PT (Personal Trainer).

The background to the topic of this post is that a friend after a long period wanted to get started with exercise. He therefore bought a gym membership, and made an appointment with a PT for help to reach his goals. A few days after the meeting with the PT, my friend wanted to discuss how the meeting went and what information he had received. My reaction was; that will never work, you'll just end up with a lot of injuries!
Maybe not the most humble reaction, but the fact remains; going from no physical activity in the form of regular exercise over a period of about 2 years, to train 5 times / week of which 3 workouts are full body exercises and 2 workouts consist of interval training is far from a realistic and manageable start.
This is partly due to the purely physiological side; the body will eventually break due to the high amount of load and lack of recovery. Instead of enjoying regular exercise; you'd spend the time on rehab instead. But there is also a psychological angle to this; behavior change is difficult enough without the extreme load of this start.

So what do I as a physiotherapist have to say about this. There are actually several things I would like to discuss concerning this topic. Let's start from the beginning ...
Who is the typical person to seek help from a PT? In my experience, it's usually people that during a certain period in their lives haven't had time or for other reasons, couldn't maintain a physically active lifestyle - often for several years. This may be due to an emphasis on career, having small children, and so on. Therefore, I conclude that PT costumers probably consist mostly of 30-40 year olds, who want to get their body fit again. And the goals are often set quite high; a person who's barely done more than a few push-ups before want to be able to do pull-ups and chins (both men and women), or run half and full marathons. The goals are sometimes disproportionate to the person's training history.

What is normally the status of people with low physical activity level?
I'll generalize a bit for simplicity, but we can surely agree that it usually means;

• some measure of overweight,
• weakness in muscles, tendons, ligaments, etc,
• imbalance of muscle groups,
• reduced stability of the trunk and joints (weakness of the stabilizing muscles),
• reduced coordination,
• and stiffness in muscles and joints.

How should the start of a more physically active life look like? This is the first challenge. Everybody want results right away, but obviously our bodies don't work that way. If we go ahead and try that, there's no way to avoid overload injuries. A slow start which means habituation of the body, building strength, durability, stability and mobility is the correct way.

Certainly, the PT feels pressure to deliver results, but sometimes I ask my self the question; does the PT have the knowledge to be able to lead the customer on the right path? Including explaining the training plan and what to expect.
I was pleasantly surprised when I saw people working out with PT:s on Muscle Beach in Los Angeles. The PT where really working with their clients in responsible way; focusing on mobility and stability, taking care of the client, teaching them how to use their body and coordinating it.
No customer should be satisfied with training that leads to injury; although I sometimes find that people generally take getting injuries for granted because they train hard, and are even a little proud of these - because then it means they're training hard. Crazy!

There are many very talented PT's and fitness coaches, but you have to find them. Have you checked what background the PT has? What education he/she has? How many years of experience?
In Sweden, for instance, it wasn't until the end of 2012 that discussions about who's qualified to call them selfes a personal trainer. Before that anyone could, but now there are some rules about the education level a PT has to have. But still there are different education levels on the course, some are just 11-12 days, and some are more serious and are even college level educations. Make sure you know what you are paying for!

Obviously, experience, years in the industry and further education play an important role in choosing a personal trainer. But my advice to you as a paying costumer is asking about the personal trainer's education, experience, and always put the well being of your body first. If the plan sounds too good to be true, then it probably is...

YOU are responsible for your body, no one else. And you want your body to be healthy for many wonderful training years to come!

Listen to your body, and good luck!

PS. In a couple of days I will post a short text on how the start of training could look like...